‘News and Research’ at Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life, Page 31

Test your personality type, see how well you can identify emotions from facial expressions, and evaluate your tendency to take risks, with a series of fun internet-based tests provided at a new depression research website. If you’d like to participate even more, you can sign up as a volunteer and help depression researchers to explore the genetics and brain functions behind depression.

What needs to happen to get it right for people with learning disabilities? The Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities and the Norah Fry Research Centre are starting a programme of work to evaluate what contributes to and hinders the successful provision of employment opportunities and community-based day activities for people with learning disabilities.

Male doctors are far more likely to prescribe antidepressant medications as a first response to patients with mild or moderate depression than their female colleagues, according to a mental health charity. Female GPs are much more likely to believe that counselling is the most effective response, but are not much more likely to refer patients to it.

A new poll of workers in London, published today by leading mental health charity ‘Together’, reveals the climate of fear and inadequate resources that prevent employees discussing and dealing with being stressed in the workplace. The poll has been conducted by ‘Together: Working for Wellbeing’, the new name for Maca (Mental After Care Association).

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved an electrical brain stimulator which delivers tiny shocks as a treatment for severe depression. A generator the size of a pocket watch is implanted into the chest, and wires snake up the neck to the vagus nerve, delivering tiny electric shocks through that nerve and into a region of the brain thought to play a role in mood.